Thursday, May 19, 2016

Will the Kremlin Move Against Ekho Moskvy Next?

Paul
Goble

Staunton, May 19 – Over the last
five years, Vladimir Putin has moved to rein in or even destroy a dozen of
Russia’s formerly more independent media outlets, most recently RBC (meduza.io/feature/2016/05/17/12-redaktsiy-za-pyat-let). And that prompts
the question: whom will the Kremlin leader go after next.

While Putin sometimes appears to
have acted or reacted to something this or that outlet released that he or his entourage
did not like, in many cases, there has been a campaign by the opponents of that
outlet that has sought to pressure the Russian president to take actions.
Indeed, he often has been able to position himself as simply responding to the
complaints of others.

Consequently, it is vitally
important for those concerned about media freedom and the Putin regime to keep
track of what such outlets known to be close to and to have influence on the Kremlin
are saying because they may provide important clues and advance warning of what
Putin will do next in “tightening the screws” on the media in Russia.

An article on Aleksandr Dugin’s
Eurasian portal may be just such an alert.One of the influential Eurasian leader’s acolytes, Yevgeny Datsun, has
written a very disturbing piece this week entitled “Whose Interests Does the
Radio Station ‘Ekho Moskvy’ Serve and Why haven’t Measures been Taken Up to
Now?” (evrazia.org/article/2860).

As
Russians become ever more united and consolidated around their leader, the
Eurasian commentator says, there will always be people found who for one reason
or another will seek to limit or even reverse that trend.Some are motivated by envy, pride, or
ambition, but often it is because they have sold out to the West.

One
can read in the Internet the explanation for some, he says, “’Yes, we are
against Russia; yes, we are for the US and for the dollars’” we get.Anyone who doubts this is a factor need only
look for himself, Datsun says. And the evidence of this betrayal is especially
great in the case of the Ekho Moskvy radio station.

This
institution shouldn’t be calling itself a radio station, he continues, but the
fact that it calls itself “the echo of Moscow” is telling: “An echo, as a physical
phenomenon, reproduces certain sound waves but as a rule distorts them.”That is precisely what Ekho Moskvy is doing
in getting its directives from the West.

The
best way to understand Ekho Moskvy, the Eurasianist argues, is to view it as “a
black box” inside of which there is a certain “algorithm” paid for by Western
money that ensures that when any event happens, the station will process it via
that algorithm and put out a distorted version of reality.

It
has done that throughout the Ukrainian crisis. It has done so in the cases of
terrorism inside the borders of the Russian Federation.And it has done so on a wide variety of
issues, Datsun says. This should not come as a surprise because it is “a black
box” which has been created to “manipulate” the consciousness of Russians by “reducing
critical thought” by putting out “absurd” arguments” and “distorted information.”

As
such, it can’t be changed; it can only be broken up along with “the algorithm”
supplied by the West, he suggests. One can only fear that Putin may be
listening and won’t see that what Datsun is accusing Ekho Moskvy of doing is
exactly what pro-Kremlin media are doing according to a different “algorithm”
the Russian state has supplied.